Breathing Room

Left and right arrows move, C jumps, hold X to charge (shake) your inhaler and release to inhale. The Asthmathlete gains superhuman speed and reflexes when he uses his inhaler. To the Asthmathlete it just looks like everything else is slowing down.

This was my first ActionScript project in more than 5 years and my first with AS3. It was also my first time using Flixel. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. I implemented a number of different types of speed traps (the only ones missing in the demo are the down vertical and horizontal darts) and have more ideas. I was never able to find a satisfactory workflow for level building (DAME was closest) so the "game" is really my two screen workspace. The music was created in GarageBand. Graphics in Photoshop. My favorite part of the game is probably the checkpoint strips. "Cross your heart and hope not to die."

With more time I'd craft some levels that introduce each speed trap and slowly ramp up the difficulty. That masher first thing is pretty brutal. I've posted a postmortem on my personal site: http://shauninman.com/archive/2011/05/02/breathing_room_postmortem

Very slick, like the frequent checkpoints! My only niggle is that EVERY obstacle REQUIRES you to stop and inhale. It would be more fun to just play the whole thing in slowmo without having to pause. But if the challenges were (just barely) doable without the inhaler, then you could time it and reward the player for not having to stop and inhale...

Man, this is I Wanna Be The Guy ruthless. It's a good thing it's like 2 seconds long! It's a little weird that there are absolutely no limits on the inhaler (and you can start it up again while it's still going), it's almost like the game should just be in slow motion all the time. You can even charge in mid-jump! Winterblood has good points on this thought, I see.

Thanks for the kind words everyone. I'm really glad the music has been received so well.

I've already started building out more levels that better introduce and gradually increase the challenge; the "game" I "finished" in 48 hours was basically whatever state the debug room was in when I was finished building out the last "threat."

Hamumu, Winterblood, without the slowmo inhaler Breathing Room would be just another poorly designed, floaty indie game instead of a poorly designed floaty indie game with an interesting if underdeveloped core mechanic :) The actual level designs I'm working on make use of slowmo to better effect.

The graphics are great, I just wonder how much deeper this can go than a simple twitch mechanic? Like maybe you could have a stimulant inhaler? or the effects of the inhaler only effect a certain bubble around you? And then you start getting into braid :)

Nice idea, very funny!
I love the retro graphics, the second that magenta came up I was going "awwwww" for old time's sake.
The contrast in the music is really nice but the non-inhaler music was a bit hard on my ears, so that's the only thing that put me off...

One other thing actually: You should really give a clew when the game is over. I actually made all the way back (checkpoints and all) just to make sure I didn't forget to click a button or something :)

Funny interpretation of the theme, and I love a good portmanteau. Love the music. The game is easy because there's no reason not to just use your inhaler constantly, and because it's only two screens long! But I enjoyed the short demo. :)